


a state, a place, a noun, a verb

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Men's Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: FC Bayern München, German National Team, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: Basti doesn’t know why he suddenly can’t shake the thoughts about Niklas anymore. It seems too simple to only blame the sweater.





	a state, a place, a noun, a verb

**Author's Note:**

> So, 5k of a muddled story. Welcome to my crib. As with almost every story, I've carried this around for some time (because I haven't had much time to write) and I'm happy to finally be able to post it. First time writing these two, obviously, and hoping to get better.
> 
> Thanks to [raumdeuter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raumdeuter) for reading this in progress and agreeing to look over the finished version before I went and posted this anyway because I'm too impatient. Sorry.
> 
> Titel from Adam Cohen's [Love Is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vyghTFiT04)

Basti was born in February, but while he doesn’t mind the winter, he can’t say he ever took to the cold.

It’s no different on that day in training, when the sun is shining, but the wind is sharp, and Basti would very much like to spend the day in the gym instead of out on the pitch.

The schedule says different though - dribbling exercises and a whole forest of football mannequins set up on the pitch.

It annoys Basti at team breakfast already, when he’s sitting down with a couple of other guys that decided to eat at the training ground. Somebody opened a window to get rid of the stuffy air and the draft is positively killing him.

Basti draws his hands back into the long sleeves of his shirt as well as he can, but he still wants to be able to hold his knife and fork so it barely helps his fingertips.

As he starts rubbing his hands together instead to get rid of the cold, prickly feeling under his skin, Niklas comes back from the buffet with a plate with a sandwich, fruit and egg in his hands.

He raises his eyebrows at Basti’s method of warming up when he slides onto the bench next to him.

“Are you cold?” Niklas asks, amusement in his voice. He’s only wearing a shirt and shorts, with a sweater slung loosely around his hips. The weather doesn't seem to bother him, which is no wonder, because he's usually radiating like an industrial-use heater.

“I’m always cold,” Basti replies, and Niklas rolls his eyes and snorts.

Basti reaches over and presses his hand to a bare part of Niklas’ neck over the collar, which causes Niklas to squeak at the touch and jerk away. The sound he makes is so high-pitched and unlike him that Basti can’t help but grin.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Niklas says. “You’re sure that’s still healthy?”

“It’s fine.”

“For a block of ice, sure.” Niklas picks up his fork and leans over his plate, before he glances at Basti again, reconsiders and shakes his head. “Can I give you my sweater?”

“Uh, thanks, but I could just go and get mine, I guess.”

“No back talk,” Niklas replies and stabs his fork into the air in front of Basti’s face. Then he already starts undoing the knot that holds the sweater around his hips and drops it into Basti’s lap.

But Basti feels a little embarrassed by the way Niklas is worrying about him, he can even feel his face turn red a little. “It’s cold outside,” he weakly objects as he picks up the sweater by the collar. “You might need it.”

Joshua, who sits a little further away and across from them, groans. “Just take it.”

Niklas grins supportingly, and Basti isn’t entirely sure that he’s not being made fun of, but he slips on the sweater in the end anyway.

To nobody’s surprise, it’s way too big in pretty much all dimensions. It looks like somebody poured cloth on Basti, but it’s the probably the softest, warmest sweater that Basti has ever worn. It helps against the draft pretty much immediately and Basti stops shivering.

Although Basti doesn’t admit that part out loud, Niklas smirks at him like he’s won at something and then begins to shovel the food from his plate into his mouth at an impressive speed.

Before training, Basti swaps Niklas’ sweater for his own fitting training jacket and a scarf, because it’s kind of hard to run in a piece of clothing that reaches halfway down your thighs.

He tries to hand Niklas the borrowed sweater back, but Niklas tells him, “Later is fine,” so he drops it into his bag before following Niklas down the short path to the training ground.

Or that’s what he concludes afterwards must have happened, because he forgets all about it until he opens his bag at home and there is Niklas’ wrinkled sweater entangled with the cable of his earphones.

Basti pulls the sweater out of his gym bag and smoothes out some of the creases with his hand. He starts to properly fold it and then, in a weak moment, doesn’t quite manage to put it away.

He ends up just holding it in his hand, staring at it. A feeling creeps up on him before he can stop it, still painful and annoying, like a papercut starting to burn again every time you pick on it.

Basti curls his fingers into the cloth tighter, shivers, but not because of any cold, and then-- no. He shakes himself out of the thoughts and throws the sweater over the back of a chair instead.

Niklas had been kind when he gave the sweater to Basti and reading anything else into it would just mean pouring lemon juice into the papercut.

They’ve known each other for what about amounts to forever in football terms. Basti can talk to Niklas about anything. Except-- yeah. This.

This pesky feeling that Basti gets when Niklas excitedly engulfs him a hug or when Niklas grins down at him or when he finds himself staring at the tattoos on Niklas’ arms.

Basti told himself for so long that he was too smart for this to happen to him, that you just have to tell yourself that teammates are off-limits. Well. Hindsight is 20/20.

Embarrassingly, the full disclosure is that Basti even tried to kiss Niklas once.

It was a misjudged attempt at a team Christmas party, back at Hoffenheim. Niklas even teases him about it sometimes, because he thinks Basti simply drunkely slipped or something. He doesn’t know that Basti’s only tipsy mind had decided that leaning over was _too_ easy. Basti’s lips had met the corner of Niklas’ mouth and Niklas had laughed and wiped off the touch with the back off his hand.

It had been such a short moment that it shouldn’t be as memorable as it is and yet the sweater, obviously still hanging over the back of a chair, is staring at Basti accusingly.

Basti stares back and is the first to blink. He buries his head in his hands and groans. Oh, fuck.

He really is not quite as over Niklas as he likes to pretend.

For his own good, Basti is a little more careful than usual about leaning into Niklas’ space the next day.

The weather is warmer now and after a couple of minutes of training, Basti actually decides to roll up his sleeves.

“I see we’re showing skin today,” Niklas remarks and grins “You must be seriously hot.”

Basti lets him laugh at his expense right up until Niklas jokingly tries to lift up Basti’s shirt and that just gets a little - well - a lot too much for Basti right now.

He tears away and takes a couple of steps back, trying to keep the innocent smile on his face to hide his quickening pulse.

Their teammates around them don’t take notice and continue with their sprints, but, of course, Niklas realises immediately there’s something wrong and a badly disguised frown appears on his face.

“Sorry?” he says, like he’s asking whether he should apologize for something that’s not out of the ordinary for them at all.

“No, no, it’s fine.”

Niklas doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but he shrugs and lets it be, because he isn’t deterred that easily. “Okay? Okay.”

Basti awkwardly and curtly pats Niklas’ arm in attempt to return to normality which only half works.

They chat a little as they continue their exercise together, as they always do. It feels stilted to Basti throughout the whole day, though, and he doesn’t know why he suddenly can’t shake the thoughts about Niklas anymore. It seems too simple to only blame the sweater.

After training, he freezes for a second when Niklas gets under the shower next to him, stares at the tiles and tries to block out the bit of vision in the corners of his eyes.

It’s barely helpful because he can’t really ignore Niklas slapping a wet hand on his shoulder when he passes him on the way back to the locker room, combined with a friendly grunt, almost like the world is out to get Basti today.

Niklas is still lingering, completely dressed and hair fixed, when Basti returns to the locker room with a towel around his waist.

“I meant to ask,” Niklas says casually, “you still have my sweater. Could you give it back some time?”

Basti stops in his motion to put his clothes back on. “What, uh, sweater?” he asks and hopes only he can hear the falter in his voice.

“The black one. You know. The one I gave you at breakfast yesterday.”

The one that somehow rolled back all the progress Basti had made in getting over Niklas. Right. Which other sweater could it be.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll… remember to bring it with me.”

“Cool, cool. Anyway: Want to grab lunch together?” Niklas asks.

The yes already on the tip of his tongue by habit, Basti hesitates for a moment.

“Maybe another time. I have to go,” Basti replies and ducks away when Niklas’ face falls.

“Oh, okay. See you.”

Basti texts Niklas apologies later, because he _knows_ he’s acting weird and that he’s being an ass for pretending he’s not. It backfires though, because Niklas evidently takes it as an invitation to get cuddly during the next days.

It’s not even that out of line for him, but as Jupp is explaining away about Leipzig’s style of play in the analysis meeting, Niklas’ shoulders bumps into Basti again and again. It happens so often, is has to be deliberate. When Basti looks over, Niklas returns the look, smiles and nudges Basti’s hand across the armrests.

Basti really thought he had arranged himself with it, balancing on the line between being touchy-feely friends and having it mean something. The Confed Cup especially turned out to be good as a sort of shock therapy - whatever the opposite of cold turkey is.

Yet now he’s here, trying to slide to the edge of his seat away from Niklas, as far as he can without being suspicious, and to concentrate on whatever is being shown on the screen in front of the team.

As soon as Jupp lets them go, Basti-- he doesn’t _run_ out of the room, but he does make a quick exit. However, Niklas has it easy to catch up with his long legs.

“Dude. It’s fine if you lost it or something,” he says.

Basti frowns. “What?”

Niklas waves his hand around carelessly. “I mean, it’s not _fine_ , it was my favourite one, but I won’t behead you if you lost it.”

Basti is still staring at Niklas blankly, so Niklas keeps talking.

“Wait, did you wash it wrong?” he asks. “But still, if that’s why you’re acting weird, you can stop.”

 _Oh_. Basti gets it now.

“Right! Your sweater.”

He doesn’t know whether he should be relieved that Niklas came up with his own explanation for Basti’s behaviour or that he’s closer to the truth than he should be.

“I didn’t lose it,” Basti says, which is true. “I keep forgetting to bring it with me.” Not so much.

Niklas cocks his head like he’s a little suspicious about it still, and Basti can see his slightly uneven sideburns. They’re not terribly uneven, you’d probably only notice if you spent as much time staring at Niklas’ face as Basti does.

“Okay,” Niklas replies. There’s definitely still something else he wants to say, but he doesn’t end up voicing it.

He leans down instead and hugs Basti, one of those engulfing hugs where Niklas completely wraps himself around him. Niklas’ hands feel big on Basti’s back and Basti wishes he could hug back without freezing up.

Pathetically, Basti pulls on Niklas’ sweater again when he gets home. It’s a bit like a hug, too, wearing the warm piece of clothing that’s too big for Basti in every dimension.

He raises one sleeve up, presses the soft cloth to his face and breathes in. It doesn’t smell like Niklas much at all and Basti has to laugh dryly about his disappointment at that. If he was the type to cry, maybe he would bawl now, but he isn’t, so he does the next best thing.

Which of course means coming up with more or less good excuses to avoid alone time with Niklas. Maybe the cold turkey approach was worth trying after all.

It works pretty well up until they both get the call-up for the national team and Löw decides to put them both in one double room.

Basti can’t blame Löw for not knowing about their current personal problems and this allocation makes sense with how known they are for never leaving each other’s side.

This way, however, it gets kind of awkward. Maybe more so in Basti’s mind than it actually is, but he does notice Niklas looking him up and down when he silently drops his suitcase on the bed and goes to leave their room again.

“Hey,” Niklas says and holds Basti back with a pretty strong grip around his arm. He sounds uncharacteristically serious. “Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong at some point?”

“There’s nothing--”

“Yeah, right.”

Basti sighs and shakes off Niklas who loosens his grip immediately, but doesn’t take his hand off Basti’s arm.

“Later, okay?” Basti says, hoping that later turns out to be never.

It actually turns out to be approximately nine hours later.

Basti had managed to shove the whole situation to the back of his mind and he had been kept busy with a press conference and a session in the gym tent just fine.

After that he hung out with some of the guys he didn’t see as much and almost didn’t think about Niklas. At some point in the early night, however, he had overstayed his welcome in Marc’s and Mats’ room and had to return to his own room.

Niklas has turned the lights off already and Basti can make out his angular silhouette in his bed, rising and falling steadily from his breathing.

Basti watches until it feels creepy, then he takes off his shoes and slips into his bed as quietly as he can and shifts and shifts, not quite finding a comfortable position.

“Basti,” a low voice says then, and Basti needs a second to realise that it’s Niklas, even though it could hardly be anyone else in the darkness of their hotel room. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Niklas snorts. His bedsheets rustle. “You said you’d tell me.”

Basti knew that at some point he wouldn’t be able to flee from Niklas any longer, and he guesses that this is the part where the whole falling in love with your best friend especially sucks - you don’t have a best friend to talk to about it.

Unless.

It’s stupid as hell, but somehow the dark makes Basti bold. He turns on his back and lets out his breath. “There’s a guy,” he says.

Niklas laughs quietly, but when Basti doesn’t react the laughter dies in the dark.

“A guy,” Niklas repeats with a strange tone in his voice, and somehow Basti knows Niklas understands what he means. He just wishes he could see Niklas’ face, be it surprise or reluctance or the confirmation that as some point since the Christmas party kiss Niklas had started to suspect.

The following silence is paralyzing. Basti expects Niklas to come up with questions, but he doesn’t.

After what seems like an eternity, Niklas just says, “This is why you avoided me?,” sounding a little hurt. “You could have told me.”

Basti couldn’t have. He really couldn’t. But he also has no good answer to that so he just shrugs helplessly, even though Niklas can’t see it in the dark.

Something lights up at the other bed, and Basti can see Niklas squinting at his phone half-under the blanket, probably checking the time.

“We should sleep,” Niklas decides and then adds more quietly, “Also, I want my sweater back.”

“It’s in Munich.”

Niklas only huffs as a reply and turns towards the wall, facing away from Basti.

It goes without saying that Basti doesn’t really sleep well after this unfinished conversation. When he wakes up, Niklas is already up and dressed.

Basti moves to sit on the edge of his bed with a groan which makes Niklas look at him.

“Oh. Good morning,” he says and smiles. Basti could interpret the smile to be a little lopsided, but mostly it looks normal.

“Good morning.”

“Sorry about yesterday,” Niklas says, which could also be Basti’s line. “I didn’t want to be so… whatever. It’s your own business.”

Basti waves his hand, tries to mirror Niklas’ smile. “Sorry for being weird.”

Niklas opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but then doesn’t and instead vanishes into the bathroom with the excuse to brush his teeth. Basti is sure there are more questions on Niklas’ mind because you don’t get told by your teammate that he’s into guys every day, but it takes Niklas until they’re sitting down in the breakfast hall to speak up.

“Who’s the guy?” Niklas asks abruptly after cutting open his bread roll.

Basti chokes on his coffee and thankfully gains some time to think during coughing and looking left and right to figure out whether anybody overheard.

“He’s-- nobody, okay? Forget it.”

Niklas nods and starts spreading the butter on his bread roll with extreme diligence, as if that’s what he’s really concentrating on. He doesn’t look at Basti when he asks, “A football player?”

Basti sighs helplessly. He appreciates Niklas’ way of trying, but he can’t think of a worse situation he’s ever manouvered himself into.

Niklas makes his own mind up about that non-reply.

“What does he look like?” he asks.

Basti makes a face at that that must speak of his misery (it’s what he feels like, at least), and Niklas continues, face and voice equally empty, “Come on, it’s cool. What’s he like?”

“Tall,” Basti says, because he’s stupid and his heart is aching. He’s waiting for a reaction from Niklas, anything at all, and he gets it when Niklas clenches his butter knife tighter.

“Ah,” he replies and pulls one corner of his mouth up in an attempted smile. “Anyone from the team?”

Basti holds Niklas’ gaze for as long as he can before he can feel his face go red and he stares down at his plate again.

“Niki, please, just… it’s not important. Forget it.”

Niklas shrugs and starts, “I just figured that you--” but he interrupts himself when Joshua and Timo appear with plates in their hands and sit down on the chairs next to them.

“Good morning,” Timo says, pours himself a glass of water and then looks between Niklas and Basti who are both staring at him without a word. “What? Anything wrong?”

“No, I was done anyway,” Basti says, picks up his plate and puts it in the designated cart. He hears Timo say, “He didn’t even finish his coffee,” and Niklas grunting in reply before he leaves the room.

Now he just has to come up with a tall football player he could believably tell Niklas he’s into. After figuring out whether they can go back to being friends like they used to after this anyway. Basti is really angry at himself for ever accepting Niklas’ sweater back then, since it all kind of broke down after he did.

He’s not ready to answer more of Niklas’ questions about, well, technically Niklas himself so he even goes so low as to pick someone else when they’re supposed to pair up for warm-up exercises in training.

“Jo, hey. Want to do the passing with me?”

Joshua turns left and right to ensure that Basti is talking to him, that Niklas isn’t standing behind him.

“Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

“So Niklas was right.”

“Right about what?” Basti asks, a little nervous at that statement.

“He said you’re acting weird.”

“I’m not!”

“Psh. I even told him he must be imagining things, but-- you’re asking _me_ to pair up with you for an exercise. And here I was thinking the doctors hadn’t figured out how to safely separate you two yet.”

Basti glances across the pitch where Niklas is passing back and forth with Boa and, true, it feels wrong, even without the romantic feelings.

Basti’s eyes drop to the ground while he mindlessly rolls their football between his hands.

“I never gave him back his sweater,” he says.

Joshua raises his eyebrows. “That’s it? You’re not serious. I thought it’d be something more relevant like a… one-night stand or something.”

Basti throws the ball away from him in surprise and Joshua only barely manages to catch it.

“What do you mean?” Basti asks. His voice is so high that it betrays the nonchalant act he was going for.

“That you two finally fu--”

“Right! No. No. No. No.”

“You said no four times,” Joshua points out and then smiles a fake smile at Schneider who passes them and gestures for them to finally start warming up. “What’s wrong then?”

“The sweater thing is true. But I also told him that,” Basti looks around and although nobody is listening, he lowers his voice, “I like guys.”

“Guys,” Joshua repeats, and Basti feels reminded of Niklas’ reply last night, but Joshua sounds much more factual and unaffected.

“And that didn’t work out. So.”

Joshua snorts. “I doubt Niklas minds that you like guys.”

Basti shrugs, and Jo continues slowly, like explaining to a child, “Because Niklas is also into guys.”

Basti blinks. “What?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be his better half who knows everything about him?” Jo looks at Basti and squints. “He’s into guys. Plays for both teams. Bi-sex-u-al. Whatever.”

“Since when?” Basti asks, eyes wide, before shaking his head. “Stupid question. Apparently he didn’t want me to know.”

Jo lets him have a moment of silence trying to fit this into the weird-ass puzzle in his head, then he says, “Want to get thrown out of the national team?”

“What? No.”

“Good. Me neither,” Jo replies, gives a thumbs-up to a quickly approaching angry Schneider and passes Basti the ball to finally start their warm-up.

The following hours turn into what’s probably Basti’s worst training performance ever. He’s trying, he really is, but he’s overthinking every conversation he’s had with Niklas since the borrowed sweater. He doesn’t reach any conclusion, just that he still loves Niklas too fucking much for his own good.

He showers after training, then he lingers and takes time washing his hair because he’s not up for any smalltalk with the others.

It almost works. When he leaves the showers, there’s nobody left in the changing room except for one person.

Niklas.

He’s just sitting on one of the benches, elbows resting on his thighs and eyes staring somewhere into nothingness. He looks kind of weary, hunched over like that.

“Hey,” Basti says, walks to his own bag and stuffs his shower gel and towel into it.

Shaken out of his day dream, Niklas immediately gets up. “Hey. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Basti suspected that, but he still awkwardly stops in his movement for a second and clears his throat.

“Uh, lunch next, right?” Basti asks, leaving Niklas words uncommented. He grabs his bag and heads towards the exit of the changing room, but Niklas is faster and blocks his way with a couple of long strides.

Basti tries to walk forward and to squeeze past Niklas, but it’s a hopeless endeavour.

It’s more or less like running against a wall, no matter how hard Basti pushes his shoulder against Niklas’s chest. Niklas doesn’t move an inch and only looks down at Basti tiredly.

“You done?” Niklas asks after some time.

“No,” Basti replies defiantly, but Niklas takes hold of his wrists and gently steers Basti back into the room.

“We need to talk,” Niklas says.

Basti pushes back one last time and then he just kind of gives up, because there’s no use resisting. Basti can’t stand the conflinct, he can’t stand not talking to Niklas and he’s really missing Niklas’ hugs. All he’s been doing the past couple of weeks is make himself miserable.

“Okay, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.”

“I shouldn’t have pressed you this morning. It’s your business, whoever the guy is,” Niklas starts. The way he says it, combined with his eyes fixed somewhere above Basti, it sounds like he rehearsed these sentences in his head. He had time while waiting here, Basti figures. “I just-- we’re friends? I thought we talk about that stuff.”

“We’ve never talked about _that_.”

Niklas laughs and sheepishly scratches his neck. “I guess not. Jo said he told you about me, so. We’re both stupid. I guess I was annoyed you kept avoiding me because of some mysterious guy.”

Basti cringes. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Niklas says. “So you wanna tell me what he’s like? Apart from tall.”

Basti takes a breath and then slowly says, “He’s great.”

“And?”

Basti swallows a sigh and sits down on one of the benches. He looks up at Niklas, who’s bowing his head the way he usually does when talking to Basti.

“We transferred around the same time.”

“So he _is_ at Bayern.”

Basti just nods.

Niklas tenses so visibly that Basti can almost see the wheels in his head turning. He’s just waiting for the moment it all clicks into place.

A long moment of silence follows. They’re just looking at each other, unsure where to go from here, until Niklas incoherently asks, “Are you cold?”

Basti, who expected about every question but that one, is stumped.

“Uh. No.”

“Good.” Niklas makes a suspenseful pause. “Because I didn’t get the last sweater I loaned back.”

Basti can feel his face turning red and hot. That goddamn sweater. “Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

Niklas interrupts him calmly, a weak smile on his face. “Basti, you can keep the sweater. I don’t care.”

“No, no, you’ll get it back!”

“Do you want to give it back?”

“What? Of course.”

Niklas starts to slowly walk two steps in one direction, then two steps back. Basti realises he’s pacing because he’s nervous about whatever he’s about to say.

Niklas takes a breath. “I’m just saying, it’s fine. Maybe it belongs to you.”

Basti’s thoughts are tumbling into a dozen different directions. He doesn’t know how a conversation about him hinting about his crush on Niklas turned into Niklas turning it all back to the sweater.

“I don’t… mind you having the sweater,” Niklas continues, picking his words carefully. “I’ve had it for a long time and maybe it’s time to… share. Unless you, uh, already have one.”

“Tell me this is not actually about your stupid sweater.”

Niklas stops his pacing in front of Basti and shoves his hands into his pockets, before he looks at Basti.

“What sweater?” Niklas asks.

Not to lie, Basti’s first impulse is to jump up from the bench and slap Niklas straight across the face.

That’s not what Niklas deserves, though, just for being equally as complicated about their relationship as Basti.

Instead Basti gets up slowly and walks up to Niklas, although his knees feel a little weak and his heart is beating too quickly to be healthy.

“I know you’re wondering whether--,” he says, stumbles over his words. “Niklas, it’s _you_. The guy I told you about. It’s always been you.”

They’re pretty close like this already, but Basti slides his feet between Niklas’ a bit, so their chests are almost touching when Niklas breathes in heavily.

He’s not surprised, he must have figured it out already when Basti hinted at it, but he still has an unbelieving look in his eyes. Basti feels the same, knows what it feels like having resigned yourself to forever almost. Like it’s too good to be true.

“Please,” Niklas mumbles, like he’s having trouble holding himself together. He looks at Basti’s mouth, back at his eyes. Basti nods, and then it all happens in a flash.

Niklas pulls Basti up so he ends up on tiptoes, bends down and kisses Basti. Despite the urgency in the kiss, Niklas’ hands are careful roaming from Basti’s hips to his chest to the sides of his face.

Forgotten the training they came from and the lunch they’re supposed to be it, all that matters to Basti now is the feeling of Niklas’ hot breath on his lips.

Niklas is strong, so he ends up pushing Basti backwards as they kiss until Basti is pinned against one of the walls with Niklas’ full body.

Niklas pulls away then, red-faced and embarrassed. Basti can’t take his eyes off of him.

“We shouldn’t, uh. Not here,” Niklas stutters.

Basti nods and tries to catch his breath, still leaning against the wall. When he catches Niklas’ eyes, he can help start laughing. He buries his head in his hands, but it barely muffles him.

“What?” Niklas asks irritatedly.

“We’re so awfully stupid.”

“We are.” Niklas pulls a face, but it turns into a crooked grin. “Did this all really start because I borrowed you my sweater?”

“I’ve been into you since, God, this is embarassing, since we played together. I thought you just saw me as a friend so I tried to ignore it. The sweater kind of brought it back.”

“Can I say something embarrassing, too?”

“Sure. It can’t get much worse.”

“I was really jealous of the guy you told me about.”

Basti laughs. “He’s a great kisser.”

“Oh?”

Niklas comes closer again, and all at once, Basti is really grateful that Löw gave the two of them a double room.

And if he steals a couple of more clothes from Niklas to sleep in that evening, then that’s for Niklas to complain about.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://lahmly.tumblr.com/), [twitter](https://twitter.com/kissthecrest) or in my apartment crying over this [gif.](https://78.media.tumblr.com/f0bde508b1a5374546f9c9cacb7b79e7/tumblr_oux1rrCI2A1r06nx6o1_400.gif)


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